Love Exposure

"Love Exposure," a roller coaster of a film with a big heart, has many unusual distinctions: It contains more crotch panty shots than perhaps any other movie in memory. It mixes martial arts, voyeurism, sexual perversion, humor, romance and religious meditation. And it pays homage to countless other films while still having a unique voice of its own.

Did I mention that it is four hours long?

Don't let the running time, or the subject matter, scare you: This intricately plotted Japanese epic has so many twists and turns - not to mention bizarre characters with even more bizarre backstories - that the time will fly by. As the old cliche goes, you will not have another moviegoing experience quite like this one all year.

The saga begins as the young Yu agrees to his devout Christian mother's dying wish that he marry a girl just like the Virgin Mary. Yu's grieving father enters the priesthood and after a guilt-inducing affair eventually forces the teenage Yu (an impressive Takahiro Nishijima) to confess his sins on a daily basis. But no sin seems sinful enough until Yu takes up the perverse hobby of photographing up the skirts of unsuspecting women on the streets. Then Yu falls in love with the man-hating martial arts whiz Yoko (his Virgin Mary!), who responds to Yu only because he is dressed as a woman at the time (another long story). Then a diabolical cult member enters the fray ...

You get the picture. Suffice it to say, there is plenty going on in director Sion Sono's ("Suicide Club") film. And there are plenty of visual and musical styles to savor. You won't soon forget it.